Holly Hoods was taken aback when three men walked into the downstairs office space of the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society one morning last week. One of them was unknown to the museum director, but he seemed to know a lot about Healdsburg history, dropping names and historical tidbits to pique her curiosity. He said he had something for her upstairs, at the double-door entry to the former Carnegie Library.
As he spun tales of Kit Carson’s connection to Healdsburg and modestly outlined his own local lineage—his wife is the great-great-granddaughter of Gen. Vallejo, and he can prove it—we climbed the narrow stairs to the gallery, where a painting brought in from the porch was revealed: a semi-pointillist portrait of Healdsburg, 1972, as if from the perspective of an airplane flying overhead.
It measured 36 inches by 24 inches, horizontal, the undeniable image of Fitch Mountain smack dab in the middle and the city displayed out in front of it, every street and many houses clearly daubed amid the gray grid of a street map.
Green was the predominant color, from lime to forest. All the streets were tree-lined then, the mountain verdant, the open space as often as not cultivated grass (school playing fields, the golf course) or vineyards.
But not all open space was green—dominant too were tight white carpets of plum blossoms as seen from the air, though there was no shortage of vineyards even then.
The painting was even dated: March 1972, when the population was 5,734. The sky was baby blue, the distant Mount St. Helena only slightly hazed. Many houses and neighborhoods we know today were missing.
Prune Blossom Tour
It represented a time when Healdsburg was in the midst of its celebrity as the Buckle of the Prune Belt. As many as 4,000 tourists were said to visit during the Prune Blossom Tour.
“Voted top 10 national travel destinations in 1966 and top 20 in the world 1969, busloads of people from 19 states and 7 foreign countries came to see the beauty of Healdsburg. There were also about 20 pilots who flew into Healdsburg airport for this event,” wrote Lightfoot in a guest “Flashbacks” column soon to be published in the paper.
“The Dating Game TV show sent their lucky couple to Healdsburg’s Prune Blossom Tour in 1966,” he noted among other facts and factoids.
Lightfoot does have legitimate Healdsburg roots, though he lives unapologetically in Sacramento. He attended Healdsburg High, class of 1975, one of several children of Dr. Phillip Lightfoot. A well-known physician in town, the doctor was also an avid amateur pilot, with a global ambition. He died in a plane crash in New Zealand in the 1970s.
The question now was, what could the Healdsburg Museum do with this memento? Visitors began to arrive, wondering what the commotion was. Lightfoot continued to tell tales that checked out with Hoods’ own familiarity with Healdsburg history.
“One of the major exhibitions of the year is going to be Healdsburg in the ’70s,” Hoods said at last, tactically. “So this could have a prominent place in the exhibit—I can get an incoming loan form so that we can keep track of it.” Problem solved, and an offhand insight into the Healdsburg Museum’s planned 2026 exhibits.
“We’ll store it,” Hoods continued. “As a collections facility, we don’t usually do long-term loans, but because we have plans to exhibit it next year I will say, ‘Yes, we will do that.’”
As the paperwork moved forward and Holly Hoods bowed out for a meeting, I asked Lightfoot why he painted it. “Healdsburg wasn’t on the map,” he said cryptically. “Healdsburg deserves to be on the map.”
During several conversations with him, Lightfoot changed the reasons behind the painting, but probably the simplest answer was the closest to the truth:
“I painted it for the love of Healdsburg, and something to give back to the community. You get to your retirement, you have a bucket list.”
The Healdsburg Museum is currently showing an exhibit of the Pomo Weavers Society, and is preparing another long-term exhibition. The Museum is located at 221 Matheson St., open from 11am to 4pm, Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is free, donations accepted.
